Charlotte messenger. [volume] (Charlotte, Mecklenburg Co., N.C.) 1882-18??, 1887-10-22

side Of right. Sin may seem attractive, DuC
It is beautiful, and like the manchineel, tree
whose dews are poisonous Inc only genuine MIt
Chippewa. wanting to see God, blackens his
face with charcoal and fasts till he has a
vision of what he calls God. My God can
see best when take my hat off and let the
sunshine blaze in my face, and after q rea-
sonable breakfast. He is not uod OF BLACK
ness and, starvation, but Of light and plentl-
tude. and the glory of the monday sun is
Egyptian midnight compared to it. There
thew po-two brothers. The one was convert
ed a Year ago in church, one Sunday morning,
during prayer, or sermon, or hymn. Noone
knew il at the time. The persons on either
side of him suspected nothing, but in that
S Young o. mans soul this process went on:
'Lord, here | am, q young man amid the
temptations of city life, and l am afraid to
risk them alone; come and be my pardon and
nv help; save me from making the mistake
that some of my comrades are making, and
save me now" And quicker than flash God
rolled heaven into his soul. He is just as
Jolly as he used to be is just as brilliant as he
used to be. He can strike ball or catch one
as easily as before he was converted. With
gun or fishing rod in this summer vacation
he was Just as skillful as before The world
is brighter to him than ever. He appre-
ciates pictures, music, innocent hilarity, So
cial life, good jokes, and has plenty of fun,
III.
is going down hill. In the morning his head
aches from the champagne debauch: Every
body sees hs is in rapid descent. What cares
he for right, or decency, or the honor of his
family name2 Turned out of employment,
depleted in health, cast down in spirits, the
typhoid fever strikes him in the smallest
room on the fourth story Of fifth rate
boarding house, cursing God, and calling for
his mother, and fighting back demons from
l.se io1. 10 hact tod md
torn to rags, he plunges out Of the world
with the shrek of a destroyed spirit. Alas
for that kind of funl 1t is remorse. 1t is de-
spair. Il is blackness of blackness. 1t is woe
unending and long reverberating, and crush
ing as though all the mountains of all
My soul, stand back from such fun.
Young man, there is no fun in ship
wrecking your character, no fun in dis
grazing your fathers name. There is no
fun in breaking your mothers heart. There is
fun in the physical pangs of the dissolute.
There is no fun in the profigate's death-bed.
There is no fun in an undone eternity.
Paracelsus. out of the ashes of q burnt rose
said he could recreate the rose, but he failed
in the alchemic undertaking, and roseate life
once burned down in sin can never again be
made to blossom.
Oh, this plumb line of the everlasting right
God will throw it over all our lives to show
us our moral reflections. God will throw it
over all churches to show whether they are
doing useful work or are standing instances
of idleness and pretense. He will throw that
plumb line over all nations to demonstrate
whether their lives are just or cruel their
rulers good or bad, their ambitions holy or
infamous. He threw that plumb line over
the Spanish monarchy of other days, and
what became of hers Ask the splntered
hulks of her overthrown armada He threw
that plumb line over French Imperialism,
and what was the result? Ask the ruins of
her Tuileries, and the fallen column of the
Place Vendome, and the grave trenches of
Sedan, and the blood of revolutions of differ
ant times rolling through the Champs Elysees.
He threw that plumb-line over ancient
Rome, and what became of the realm of the
Casarsl Ask her war eagles, with beak
dulled and wings broken, flung helpless into
the Tiber. He threw it over the Assyrian
Empire Of thousand years, thu thrones
of Semiramis, and Sardanapalus, and
Shalmaneser, of twenty-seven victorious ex-
petitions the cities of Ph1nicia kneeling to
the scepter, and all the world blanched in the
presence. What became of all the grandeur!
Ask the fallen palaces of Khorsabad and the
corpses of her 1885, 900 soldiery- slain by tho
angel Of the Lord in one might, and the Assyrian
sculptures of the worlds museums all that
now remains of that splendor before which
nations staggered and crouched. God is now
throwing that plumb line over this American
republic, and it Is a solemn time with this
nation, and whether we keep His Sabbaths or
dishonor them, whether Righteousness or in
EQUITY dominate, whether we are Christian
or infidel, whether we fulfill our mission or
refuse it, whether we are for God or against
him, will decide whether we shall as ma
ton go on in higher and higher career or go
down in the same grave where Babylon and
Nineveh, and Thebes, and Assyria are
sepulchered.
plumb line what can any of us do, for there
is an old proverb which truthfully declares:
If the best mans faults were written Oh his
forehead it would make him pull his hat over
his eyes What shall we do when, according
to Isaiah, God shall lay judgment to the line
and righteousness to the plummet All,
here is where the Gospel comes in with a
Saviour's Righteousness to make up for our
deficits. And while l SEQ hanging on the
wall a plumb line, see also hanging there a
cross. And while the one condemns us the
other saves us, if only we will hold to it.
And here and now you may be set free with
a more glorious liberty than Hampden,
or Sidney, or Koscius1o ever fought for.
Not out yoader, nor down there, nor up here,
but Just where you are you may get it, The
invalid proprietress of a wealthy estate in
Scotland visited the continent of Europe to
get rid of her maladies, AMI sho went to
went to Carlsbad and tried those waters, and
went to Homburg and tried those waters, and
instead Of getting better she got worse and
in despair she said to a physician: what
shall dor His reply was: Medicine can
do nothing for you. You have one chance
in the waters Of Pit Keathly Scot
land" "Is it possible9' she replied "Why,
those waters are on my own estatel' She re-
turned, and drank Of the fountain, and in a
few months completely recovered. Oh sick
and diseased, and SHINING, and dying hearer,
why go trudging all the world over, and
seeking here and there relief for your dis
couraged spirit, when close by, and at your
very feet, and at the door of your heart, aye,
within the very estate of your own conscious
ness, the healing waters of eternal life may
be had, and had this very hour, this very
minute, this very Sabbath Blessed be God
that over against the plumb line that Amos
saw is the cross, through the emancipating
power of which you and may live and live
foreveri